Cameron's cornered on Europe

Is David Cameron trapped by his pledge to create a new Eurosceptic political alliance with like-minded parties from east and central Europe? That prospect is growing nearer, after the most important of his potential allies publicly rebuffed him.

Just where do the ToriesÂ stand on the EU?

Ending weeks of speculation, the leaders of the Czech centre-right Civic Democratic Party (ODS), which narrowly won a general election last month, finally declared yesterday they had "postponed" plans to join Mr Cameron's British Conservatives in a new group at the European Parliament.

That public rejection leaves Mr Cameron cornered, and facing two equally problematic scenarios, as he struggles to keep his promise to pull Tory members of the European Parliament out of its current alliance with the parliament's main centre-right grouping, the federalist European People's Party (EPP).

Either Mr Cameron can admit the plan is on hold, and offer to form a new group with the ODS and other continental parties nearer the next Euro-elections in 2009. That risks the certain anger of large numbers of his MPs and grass roots activists.

Alternatively, Mr Cameron can risk accusations from Labour of consorting with foreign extremists by making the jump without the ODS. That involves forming a mini-group with Euro-MPs from Poland's increasingly controversial ruling party, "Law and Justice" (PiS), or ordering his MEPs to leave the EPP and sit on the "independent" benches, currently best known for housing such extremists as Jean-Marie le Pen, the French National French leader.

The moderate ODS would give a new group welcome credibility. That's why Mr Cameron flew to Prague secretly last month to see the ODS chairman, Mirek Topolanek, to discuss a new group. But Mr Topolanek told the Conservative leader he needed to concentrate on tortuous negotiations to form a coalition government, which seem likely to last for several more weeks, if not months.

Alas for Mr Cameron, Mirek Topolanek told Czech media that preparations for the founding of a new group of were now focused on long-term moves, linked to "elections in 2009."

"We want to prepare it better. But work on a non-federalistic faction with a positive programme will continue," he added.

The ODS leader in the European Parliament, Jan Zahradil, told the "Dnes" newspaper: "We are prepared to postpone our long-running preparatory negotiations over the creation of a new eurorealistic faction at the European Parliament so that they do not collide with talks over the creation of a new Czech government."

As discussed here before, those negotiations have been greatly complicated by intense pressure on the ODS from leading centre-right European politicians seeking to block Mr Cameron's departure from the EPP, notably from Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

Piling on the pressure, two leading MEPs from Law and Justice from Poland are to visit London today, to make clear their readiness to join Conservatives in a new group immediately. The pair Michal Kaminsky and Adam Bielan are the very acme of modern moderation, which is presumably why they have been invited to make their pitch at a lunch with the Policy Exchange a think tank that is not exactly a hotbed of extremism.

But for the Tory leadership, the truth is that, in the court of public opinion, Law and Justice have made themselves far less useful to Mr Cameron by forming a coalition government back home with a pair of extremist parties, accused of homophobia and anti-Semitism.

PS – I'm told the Polish visit to London was cancelled today, as the two MEPs had to rush home for the appointment of their new prime minister (who is the identical twin of the Polish president). The new Polish PM, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, kicked things off with a robust display of Euroscepticism, telling the Polish weekly "Wprost" he would battle for Polish national interests in Brussels – just as established European powers do. Mr Kaczynski told the magazine he did not "share the view that's popular in Europe, that the nation state is something bad. We want to take advantage of our presence in Europe to strengthen the nation state… We won't agree to solutions that obviously disadvantage us."